Gabbie spent some years living in Spain when she was young, where she found her passion for horses. When she moved back to the UK, she got her first pony Brandi. Gabbie went to a Tik Maynard clinic with Brandi that left her super inspired to learn everything she could about horsemanship, horse behaviour, and training horses. Gabbie was keen to immerse herself into working and learning from professionals.
When she was 16, Gabbie spent time in Florida as a working student for Tik Maynard, and since then has been back two more times to learn from Tik and his wife, international event rider, Sinead Halpin. When she was 18 she was a working student for Tristan Tucker, in the Netherlands.
Gabbie has also had experience working for many trainers and riders based in the UK, including a head groom position for Paralympic rider Natasha Baker, and other trainers specialising in horsemanship, showjumping and dressage.
As Gabbie’s experienced grew in training horses, she became more aware of how important it is for the horse to physically feel good in their bodies, as well as mentally and emotionally. She developed a keen interest in horse biomechanics, therapy, and rehabilitation. This led Gabbie to qualify as an Equine Sports Massage Therapist and she now treats horses of all disciplines.
Then Gabbie went on to qualify in Human Sports Massage, so that she now is able to offer horse and rider sports treatments.This means that as well as treating your horse, Gabbie can assess and treat any imbalances or asymmetries in the rider, that may be blocking or impacting the horses way of going. Helping both horse and rider feel comfortable, and achieve optimum condition and performance.
Gabbie offers a holistic approach to working with horses and owners. She is passionate about helping horses feel good mentally, emotionally and physically. Specialising In groundwork to help horses work through emotional or behavioural challenges, and to teach horses how to move in a healthy, correct way, striving for softness in the body and in the mind.
I have always believed that anyone can learn to ride and train horses no matter how unconventional the combination. If you come to the party with the right attitude, you will be successful!
Along with my partner Nick Lawson we established Corvedale Equestrian in 2021, offer training, competition livery and rider education for all levels of equestrians.
Luckily, I started my career at The Talland School of Equitation alongside the late Molly Sivewright and Pammy Hutton, here I would get an insight into top dressage and elite training. Upon returning home I set up my first training and livery yard and things built from there.
Learning from the best trainers and competitors in the business from Isobel Wessels, Carl Hester, Peter Storr, Henk van Bergen, Frederick Pignion, Honza Blaha to name but a few. I learnt many lessons some more difficult than others and mainly on myself.
Throughout my career I was fortunate to ride and train many beautiful horses with success at National level, but by far the greatest opportunity was purchasing IceBlue Valentino with Gloria Price and Jennifer Long.
He helped me achieve my goal of training a horse from the nothing to Grand Prix. After a difficult start to his ridden life in Holland and failing as a show jumper, his confidence and trust was gone, but he had something special and I felt he was the one to join our team and although at times not easy, I have loved every minute of it. Now at 20 years old, he is king of the yard and everyone’s favourite, he is still competing and training better than ever.
I feel privileged to have this wealth of knowledge and experience to share with my students. Even though I still love to go out and compete my main passion is training and educating riders from all levels both with ridden and in-hand work, watching them achieve their goals is so rewarding.
LM Saddle has been a vital part of my journey over the last 15 plus years, first working with Lavinia Mitchell and now with Jemma Aigner.
Being part of the process and design has allowed me to test ride and give feedback on many different saddles to help improved the final design from the perspective of a competitive rider and trainer allowing for a truly revolutionary design for not only the horse but the rider as well.
Coming from a non-horsey family, my parent’s thought horses were just a phase and I’d eventually grown out of it, but how wrong they were!
On leaving school I attended Hartpury College, and this is where my love for dressage was ignited. I used to skip lessons and sneak into the indoor arena to watch Carl Hester teach as a guest coach and I was hooked.
Fortunately, I went on to compete one of the Hartpury College horses, allowing me the opportunity to have regular lessons with Carl, and get my first real taste for the sport.
On leaving College, I was offered a full-time position at Abbey Dressage under the tutelage of Glenys Hemming. Here I furthered my knowledge having training again with Carl, Charlotte Dujardin, Spencer Wilton, David Trott and was given the opportunity to eventually compete up to Prix St George level, winning both Regional and National titles.
I love coaching people and as well as being a qualified British Dressage Accredited UKCC Level 3 Coach, Youth Assessors and British Dressage Youth Coach. I am also part of the faculty team for the National Development Program for Coaching Excellence – helping to train the trainers of the future.
In 2019 I completed the APEC (Advanced Psychology for Equestrian Coaches) Advanced program becoming a Centre10 Advanced Coach and in 2020 I attended ‘The Coaches Role; creating rider symmetry to improve performance’.
A course created by the renowned Physio Andy Thomas who provides a unique insight into the management of the human equestrian athlete by using his own TESTT system for assessing imbalances and weaknesses in equestrian riders.
I then joined forces with Mark Walters in 2021 to create Corvedale Equestrian – offering training and education to all levels of horse and rider.
Competing at national level and with a string of up-and-coming horses saddling is such an important part of keeping all our horses happy and healthy, allowing them to perform at their best weather that be at Elementary or GP level.
All our horses are ridden and competed in LM Saddles. Due to versatility of the shimming and pad system, you can tweak the saddle to give the horse optimum performance and movement depending on their fitness, condition and time of year.
A little bit about Corvedale Equestrian -
With over 50 years of industry experience combined, we have found what we believe is a perfect alchemy of lifestyle, training and fun.
Corvedale Equestrian is not only a livery yard and training facility it also boasts a members Equestrian Club. Designed for equestrian enthusiasts of all ages and abilities. It has created a community where high-quality affordable training is available to help all people grow and improve in their chosen areas.
Running monthly training and residential camps throughout the year, as well as many demo and educational days Corvedale definably offer something for everyone.
“Whether it's refining your competition horse, confidence building, or basic horsemanship skills, we have events and training for you”
Mark Walters
I discovered I had the horse bug at 9 when my mum got a Cob cross Arab called Ted. By age 11 I had my first wild Arabian and my mum's three year old Cob x couldn't be controlled by any bit on the market.
We went to our first natural horsemanship clinic and got completely hooked.
This led to us attending, or hosting a horsemanship clinic or three every year of my adolescents.
At age 16 I went to natural horsemanship "collage" studying under my instructor in Australia, learning the art of teaching horses and humans to understand each other, and develop Fundamental skills.
After this I was privileged enough to study in the USA and start teaching at training horses at the age of 19.
Now in my early 30's I still study and teach horsemanship, throughout my travels I've had the joy of learning the basics of driving, western riding and since being back in the UK eventing too.
Now my 6 wonder horses, my partner Zoë and I continue to help people and horses create lasting bonds through understanding each other.
Jamie and Zoë run 'Develop Your Horse' from their base at Bishops Stortford where their mission is to demystify quine psychology to help people reach their goals.
My passion for horses started at the very young age of two, my mum told me that every morning when we passed a field with two horses in I would shout from my pram until they came over and I would hold my hands up to them.
I started riding at Hartwell riding stables in Hertfordshire aged 6, every Saturday without fail no matter the weather, at 9 my dad bought me Blue Boy a heinze 57 grey cob that could really jump, we did everything together jumping for Oxford pony club, hunter trails, show jumping, hunting, gymkhana! Blue stayed with me 1 until he passed away aged 21.
My first grooming job was with a Grade A showjumping rider then moving onto show ponies, then hunters, always working very hard to turn out to a very high standard.
In between raising my children I was a freelance groom, when my youngest started school I finally started my training with Olivia Renshaw @ Wolds Equine sports massage and rehabilitation.
This was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, and I loved my training days going to Oldham to see my trainer Lisa Sharp.
It was a bit of a juggling act at times to fit everything in around family life, often working until 4am to complete assignments. Once qualified I've never looked back, I'm still up dating my skills and knowledge, I take great pride in my work, I work with great empathy always having the horse as my first priority, I believe my passion shows within my work.
When Jemma approached me to be a brand ambassador I felt very privileged, I know how much L M Saddles means to Jemma, and our paths had crossed so many times, lots of discussions about mutual clients horse's, discussions about biomechanics, bodywork work and saddle fitting. Jemma has such great empathy she's so calming to be around, I for one want to surround myself with positive like minded people, we both have the same goal within our jobs, that the horses well-being comes first both mentally and physically.
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